


The devil will want you back

by pushdragon



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushdragon/pseuds/pushdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't need to watch Eames single-handedly hefting a six-foot metal bookcase back to its original position on the opposite side of the warehouse to know he had the kind of build that Arthur, given the right lapse in judgment, might make a play for one day. But it's hard to say what tipped him over, at the end of that disaster of a job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The devil will want you back

The question – a typical piece of smart-arsery – throws him, because the answer is that it wasn't exactly any of the things Eames would like to suppose.

He didn't need to watch Eames single-handedly hefting a six-foot metal bookcase back to its original position on the opposite side of the warehouse to know he had the kind of build that Arthur, given the right lapse in judgment, might make a play for one day. Since the start of the job, Arthur's double-checked Yusuf's dosage calculations enough time to be intimately familiar with the bare physical dimensions of Eames the man. What had distracted him with misplaced desire, a mere 24 hours before the precarious experiment of the Fischer job, was not the view of insistent muscle straining the back and legs of his trousers as Eames squatted in front of the shelves, but the meticulous care with which he was wiping down every last surface that might conceal a print.

The surprise was that Eames could be kind of dependable in everyday tasks, when there was no glory to be had in it. On that last late night in Paris, he'd whisked away Arthur's discarded working papers, batch by endless batch without dropping a thread, to be thrown on the small fire in the drum down the side of the building. Under the rare plainness of a long-sleeved t-shirt, reduced to the impression of competent strength, Eames could have been anything from a bricklayer to a policeman to a personal trainer, unassumingly earning his daily bread. Then there had been the sweeping, end to end of the quarter-acre warehouse floor while Arthur checked weather and flight delays and Dom and Ariadne ran a last minute training exercise in the two remaining chairs. The muscles across his shoulders and back made such quiet, diligent work of dockets and glass shards and chemical residue that before long Arthur could do nothing but watch from the fascinated corner of his eye.

And yes, there had been little things before that, like the litter of awful McDonalds coffee cups that evidenced another all-night recap of Browning's bio. The way he'd pulled off Savile Row finery to go undercover at Fischer Morrow like he'd been born in it. The fact that, since the brush-off Arthur had given him in the aftermath of their first job, finding himself more than a little wary of providing direct bodily access to a profoundly brilliant forger who'd already pulled off a perfect impression of their architect in a practice run, Eames has never quite stopped being interested.

"Work it out yourself," Arthur tells him, here and now, watching those capable hands make short work of his full Windsor and teasingly slide his tie free, "if that's how you'd rather spend the afternoon."

Eames smiles as he eases Arthur's buttons open, moving downwards from the collar with the care of a respectful tailor. "Keep me in the dark if you like. But if it was a blow to the head that changed your mind, you should know I have every intention of taking advantage."

Truth is, a good part of it was what happened on the first level in the disaster of a job they just salvaged. When he'd looked around for someone he could count on, he'd got nothing from Dom but last-roll-of-the-dice treachery. Against all odds, it was Eames who had grimly stepped up to help him hold the job together, without a word of reproach for Arthur's lapse in research regarding Fischer's militarisation. All he'd said about that, much later in the taxi queue outside LAX which they probably shouldn't have joined so close together, was, "Welcome to the human race, Arthur," and slipped on his sunglasses.

"Marriott on West Olympic," Arthur had told his taxi driver loudly through the open window.

Foolhardy, adrenalin-driven once-off that this is, he wants it to be the kind where they kiss. Eames's mouth is soft and surprised, the skin around it still smooth as if he'd touched up with the razor before he came to knock on Arthur's door. His hands spread out heatedly over Arthur's chest, one of them curling under his jaw with latent strength that makes Arthur bite his groan into Eames's willing mouth.

It takes them a while to get to the bed. For a professional seducer, Eames gives a pretty conventional performance – one hand between Arthur's shoulder blades and the other fisted in the shirt dangling from his belt as he lightly bites Arthur's shoulder with his eyes half closed. Arthur had always put it down to some cautious sense of privacy that Eames's original forgeries, when not mimicking a known model, tend towards an overblown sexuality far too cartoonish to be a reflection of his own erotic history. Now he wonders if Eames has got about a lot less than his self-satisfied air would suggest.

Then between one breath and the next, Eames is on his knees, stripping Arthur down to nothing, taking off one shoe at a time. He runs his fingers over the faint pink marks from the sock elastic, gently up under the arches of each foot, making Arthur shiver. Arthur's still got an ankle in one leg of his suit pants when Eames goes to work with his mouth. And it may be – Arthur's distantly aware of this like a radio playing softly in the next room – a bit too rough and hurried; it may have none of the edgy combativeness he'd expected them to spark together, but right now Arthur's mind is flooded into uselessness with the sight of smart, capable, insubordinate Eames running his lips over the welling tip of his cock and opening his mouth to swallow down again.

No, nothing changed, Arthur thinks later as he climbs onto the bed on knees that are still post-orgasmically unsteady and lets Eames direct his hand into the tight grip he wants. Every one of the feats Eames pulled off on the Fischer job was within the exceptional talents Arthur always knew him to have. The only thing – Arthur shifts down and across to curl up more comfortably on the bed, supported on the one arm thrown over Eames's thighs as his free hand resumes its promising rhythm and Eames reaches out to grip his knee. The only possible straw that broke his resolute refusal to cross this line with Eames is the playful look Eames gave him as he lay back on the pale brown hotel carpet on the second level of the dream and held his arm out for the needle. As if, in the aftermath of Cobb's deception, knowing that his life and sanity hung by a spider thread, there were no hands he'd rather be in than Arthur's.

He's a bit stuck on the memory of that moment when he draws himself free of Eames's doze-heavy arms and calls down to reception to make sure the room is available for another couple of days.

"Concussion doesn't usually last more than 24 hours, you know," Eames says sleepily as he's chucking stray clothes onto the floor and putting the sheets to rights. "Let's not get hasty."

He settles himself over Eames's chest, pressed in close enough to make no secret of how quickly the body heat, proximity, and lingering smell of arousal turn him on. "All right, it wasn't a blow to the head," Arthur tells him, kissing the point of his chin without breaking eye contact. "I can tell you that much."

**Author's Note:**

> A holiday gift for leemarchais, who also wrote me some tasty A/E featuring Eames's spectacular hot hands (which you can find at her livejournal). Happy New Year my dear! I resorted to ipod roulette for the title, which was doing my head in. It's from Handshake by Two Door Cinema Club.


End file.
